


Picture Perfect

by ellymango



Category: Ballerina | Leap! (2016)
Genre: Almost nsfw, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Making Out, Memories, Mild Angst, Old Flames, One Shot, Past Relationship(s), Pre-Canon, Self-Indulgent, Softcore Porn, is this porn i don't know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:54:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24590398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellymango/pseuds/ellymango
Summary: Mérante wasn't a tremendously good artist, but he was far from terrible. Of course, most of his artwork, from his idle sketches to completed drawings were of ballerinas; wearing costumes he envisioned for their roles, or performing routines he wanted to see. He never really drew anything else; he had no desire or reason to draw anything other than ballet. Ballet had pretty much been his life ever since he was a child after all, and he’d grown up around dancing and music, the gilded halls of theatres and the dusty backstage being his playground, the soft whines of tuning woodwinds and brass being his lullaby. So it made sense ballet would bleed into his private, non professional life and that if he wanted to draw something, he’d draw ballerinas.But he always drew the same ballerina.
Relationships: Louis Mérante/Odette
Comments: 6
Kudos: 42





	Picture Perfect

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, here it is: My last finished WIP from 2018. Feels like the end of an era, eh?
> 
> As you'll be able to tell, this one was VERY self indulgent and dirty and shippy, and even it's honestly the closest I've gotten to writing porn for this couple (even though no actual porn happens)
> 
> Note this hasn't been beta read, so it probably sucks lol

Mérante wasn't a tremendously good artist, but he was far from terrible. Of course, most of his artwork, from his idle sketches to completed drawings were of ballerinas; wearing costumes he envisioned for their roles, or performing routines he wanted to see. He never really drew anything else; he had no desire or reason to draw anything other than ballet. Ballet had pretty much been his life ever since he was a child after all, and he’d grown up around dancing and music, the gilded halls of theatres and the dusty backstage being his playground, the soft whines of tuning woodwinds and brass being his lullaby. So it made sense ballet would bleed into his private, non professional life and that if he wanted to draw something, he’d draw ballerinas.

But he always drew the same ballerina.

He never intended to, but he did. Try as he would, he always found himself sketching the same lean, slender face, sweeping dark hair, the long elegant frame...

And her wide-bridged, crooked nose.

She was painfully similar, so agonisingly like the dancer he'd once known, once loved all those years before. But she was like a ghost to him now; a fleeting glimpse as she slipped into a storeroom, a wraith as she passed by his office with only the _tap-tap-tap_ of her crutch to alert him of her presence. He wanted to take her back, bring her up from the lowly level she'd slipped to, to let her dance once again as she had on stage but he _couldn't..._

So maybe that's why he drew her. To immortalise her effortless grace, and natural elegance; to commemorate that spark of talent snuffed out before it could be kindled into greatness.

He only wished it would translate into real life.

*  
Odette never liked cleaning this room.

She had no choice, of course. She couldn't refuse to clean a room based on her feelings towards whoever owned it. That was absurd. Still, as she stepped into the choreographer’s office, she felt the same pang of misery she always did, sorely aware of how close she and its owner had once been. He used to joke with her about the parties he'd throw in his office if he ever got one; long nights of debauchery and wildness, where he claimed he'd show off and wear dresses and kiss boys and break his record of eighty-seven drunken fouetté's, and how he'd round it off by kissing her passionately at the end. But she'd never heard of such parties being thrown, let alone been invited to one.

She closed the door behind her, switching on the light. She used to object to electricity, siding with people who said it was a glorified fire hazard and shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the theatre... but it sure made her job a lot easier now she didn't need to fumble around looking for matches when she had to clean late at night. Besides, there hadn’t even been a report of a small fire since it was installed. If only the same could’ve been said about gas lighting.

Odette set her basket of supplies down, flexing a back that was far too old and stiff to be lugging things around on her damaged leg. Her attention was acutely drawn to Mérante's desk, large and dark, yet covered in papers, and though she knew it was rude to snoop, she limped over curiously, gathering the sheets into her arms. After all, she figured he might want his precious works tidied away somewhere and not left scattered around for someone to steal, or to be blown into oblivion by a stray breeze.

Then she realised the papers weren’t music.

They were drawings, drawings of ballerinas performing various steps and moves, limbs slightly elongated for effect, skirts drawn in a flurry of pencil lines, hair etched in thick and dark. Odette felt a smile tugging at her lips as she shifted through them, remembering all those fleeting, precious moments they could steal for themselves. Their schedules back then had been tighter than a corset; rehearsal, recital, rehearsal, recital, with barely enough time to sleep, let alone meet up. But they caught each other when they could, usually in the post-recital flurry, and slip off for a quiet moment together.

Some afternoons, when he was starting to choreograph for the first time, she’d pose for him and he’d draw her. _"I need to get a feel for this position,"_ he’d tell her, _"I want to know what it looks like for future reference, so I can work it into a performance."_

_"What kind of performance, may I ask?"_

_"Who knows? Maybe one day, I’ll write one just for you."_

He kept to his promise; less than a week later he presented her with a beta of a routine tailored to her skills and fortes, a routine capable of proving herself as the so-called "best of her generation". Less than a month later, she performed it to a tremendous reception, receiving many suitors and patrons at her dressing room door for days afterwards, being catapulted from a minor sujet to the frontline spotlight overnight.

Odette blinked back tears at the memory, wondering how long that stardom would have lasted as she absently collected the drawings, looking around to try and find a suitable place to store them. She couldn’t help but glance down at them again, acutely aware of how much the dancer in the drawings reminded her of someone.

And so she studied them closer.

The dark hair could have indicated anyone; most girls at the Opera had black or brown hair so it was hardly a unique detail to notice. The dancer had a slender, almost pinched face which Odette felt she should recognise... but she knew just as many narrow-jawed girls as brick-faced ones.

It was the nose that gave it away.

She couldn’t believe how he’d managed to capture such an uncanny likeness in a few simple sketches, yet here she was standing in front of a desk scattered with drawings of herself; posed in effortless and timeless positions, modelling costumes for various ballets, demonstrating choreography and simply resting. She traced the lines of the dancer’s limbs with her fingertip, being careful so as to not smudge the delicate pencil lines. Even to her untrained and frankly rusty eye, she could tell that if this pencilled version of herself were to leap off the pages, she would be wonderful, and captivating, a dancer straight out of the imagination.

Odette wondered if she truly was as graceful and beautiful as she had once been told.

_"I won’t be a minute, I just need to collect my notes..."_

The voice was unmistakable, of course. It was his voice, a voice which once used to be the most wonderful sound she knew, yet now caused her to jump in shock and drop the sheets of drawings, sending them fluttering to the floor like leaves. She frantically tried to gather them up and reset them, to make it look like she wasn’t snooping through what she assumed to be private work, before she heard the click of the door and...

"Oh! I’m sorry, I forgot I was here after hours..." Mérante laughed nervously, stepping into the room and squinting at the cleaning woman in front of him. "Wait... Odette? Is that you?"

He stepped closer, and Odette could hear suspicion in how tentatively and carefully he was moving. "Are you alright? You’re very tense."

Her head turned sharply to face him, the rest of her body shifting suit. She noticed, alarmingly, how wide his dark eyes went when he saw her holding his stash of drawings. "Monsieur I swear-"

"Don’t call me monsieur." He held his hands up carefully, realising he’d startled her. "Please. Call me Louis. Monsieur is far too formal for old friends, wouldn’t you agree?" He smiled, waiting nervously for her to smile back.

Odette swallowed, not smiling and somewhat twitchy. "Louis, I... I swear I wasn’t stealing them, I was just cleaning them, they were all scattered everywhere, I..." She could feel her cheeks burning up with a fierce blush, and her eyes darted around trying not to look at her former partner.

"I know, I know..." He was irritatingly calm. "I would never suspect you would steal, rest assured."

Odette nodded, gathering herself together. Of course he wouldn’t accuse her of stealing without evidence. He wasn’t Régine after all. "I’m sorry. It’s... a reflex."

He nodded. "I know."

With a sudden sharp breath, she flashed the drawings at him, not intending for her voice to sound as sharp and accusing as it did. "Louis, these are all of me, aren’t they?"

Even in the bleak light, she could see how his expression changed from soft concern to shock, and quiet embarrassment. "Well, I don’t actually keep someone in mind whilst drawing, and..." He sighed. "I suppose they are, yes. I... never intend for her to look like you. But somehow..." He rubbed his neck. "She always turns out looking like you."

Odette gazed down at her image longingly, pursing her lips as questions upon questions swirled in her mind like a tempest. "How long have you been drawing me?"

"For as long as I’ve been drawing dancers." Her stare asked him how long is that? "I... think about..." He racked his brain, trying to pinpoint when he’d stopped drawing as she posed before him to drawing her from memory. "For as long as I’ve choreographed. And you know how long that is." He smiled. _Please smile back..._

"Do you have more of these then?" She waved the drawings at his face, causing him to flinch back slightly. "Is there a big stash of them somewhere? Do you keep them here or at home?" She hoped to God it was the former.

"I do have more yes..." And that prompted a horrified stare. "They’re purely referential. I don’t use them for anything other than work."

The sincerity in his voice let Odette relax a little. "Do... you draw anyone else?"

"Sometimes." In more recent times, his muse had shifted to Rosita; a dancer he spent far too many hours of his day coaching and rehearsing. He would never complain of course, she was perfectly agreeable and pleasant company. But she wasn’t Odette.

"But it’s mostly me?"

"Yes."

Odette nodded, feeling slightly dazed and somewhat nauseous, and unsure on how flattered she felt. "But, why me?"

"Well, you were my muse, were you not? You’ve always been my muse. Then, now..." He sighed guiltily, unable to think of a decent excuse. "I’m sorry."

"For what?"

"You don’t seem to approve, do you?" Not everybody took kindly to their image being used as a drawing reference, he knew that for sure. He himself didn’t know how he’d feel if someone told him they had a stash of drawings of him lying around. Not that that would ever happen; people barely paid attention to the male dancers after all.

"I’m just..." Her shoulders deflated. Physically, she felt ill, and giddy, and she could feel herself shifting her weight from one foot to the other to save her the embarrassment of needing to sit down. Emotionally... she didn’t know what she felt. Numb; strangely numb, as though all her emotions had been siphoned out and replaced with an empty void.  
"I suppose I’m just overwhelmed." Overwhelmed by an already tiring day of cleaning (and the ever-present threat of being given more long chores once she returned home), overwhelmed by having to tidy a room she preferred avoiding, by finding a hoard of drawings of herself, coming face to face with her former lover who she hadn’t had a meaningful conversation with in years...

Being confronted with the memories of her bittersweet past. Memories she tried far too hard to suppress and ignore.

There was a question on the tip of her tongue, or several questions rather, ones too daring and blunt to ask right now. _Why me?_ She felt he’d answered that, or tried to answer anyway. _Was I really this beautiful?_ But how could he answer that? They were just sketches, doodles of a dancer who was far from the perfection of a photograph. It was a stupid question.

 _Do you still love me?_ Because she still loved him, deeply and desperately, and a glance into his eyes confirmed that yes, _he loved her back._

A hand cupped her cheek, tender and attentive. Odette leaned her head against Mérante’s palm, eyes closed and brows sloped in exhaustion, realising how such a light gesture made her feel so much heavier as she pressed her worries and troubles into his hand. She half expected to keel over with the force she was leaning with, and half wanted that to be the case so at least she could be lifted up, the dead weight of her body taken off her feet.

"You seem tired." His thumb brushed just beneath her eye, prepared to stroke away any future tears.

A half-hearted and breathless laugh escaped her. "I’m always tired. Don’t you remember that?" It was something he told her constantly back then, so much it almost became a joke between them.

He laughed too, the same deep and warm chuckle she remembered from all those years ago as he bought his other hand to stroke up the column of her neck then down to her shoulder. "I remember."

They fell silent, not daring to break their moment with sound. Never had they thought they’d be so close again, so starved of each other’s affection that even the lightest touch seemed like intense intimacy. It would have been funny once, had their separation been short and sweet. But their separation had been long. Arduous. And the joke wasn’t funny anymore.

"What happened to us, Louis?"

Odette’s voice was forlorn and longing, and she nudged his palm gently, wishing he’d bring his other palm to her other cheek and hold her head so he could kiss her like he used to.

_"Hold still!"  
"Why so? You aren’t drawing me."  
And he’d held her head firmly and kissed her. "So I can kiss you of course!"_

She couldn’t believe she was yearning for a kiss of all things, and had she been in a less melancholy state of mind she would have laughed. It felt so teenaged and young to her, so naive and innocent...

And now she felt even more like her younger self. As if this day hadn’t dredged up enough bitter memories.

She hadn’t noticed how Mérante hadn’t responded to her musing, and had instead opted to hold her hand, interlocking their fingers as if he were about to lead her into a steady on-the-spot waltz. A few of the drawings were on the floor, yet neither of them reacted as they stood still and quiet, close enough to hear and feel the other’s steady breathing.

"That night." The sudden voice in the silence pulled Odette’s eyes up, only to realise Mérante’s gaze was elsewhere, focused on one of his fallen drawings, or on the faded pattern of the carpet. "That’s what happened."

They both wanted to admit that there was more to it than just that, to push the fire back into their subconscious where it belonged and say they fell apart because they were too young back then, or that their love was simple puppy love and their separation had made their hearts grow fonder. Or that they had been too young to settle down, start a family, and give up on their blossoming careers for a mundane, traditional lifestyle.

Or maybe it really was the fire. How they’d lashed out at each other out of grief or frustration, how she’d refused his help and pushed him away, and how he’d been almost relieved to eventually leave her to wallow in her misery, and focus on healing his own worries and woes. How they hadn’t really spoken since, due to his numerous promotions raising him from a notable dancer to chief choreographer, how she’d set her focus more on her housekeeping job than her one at the theatre. They’d never made a point of ignoring each other, never actively avoided being in the others presence.

And time had done the rest.

"It’s my fault for letting you go." Odette’s jaw clenched so tightly it felt painful. "I should have let you stay. You _wanted to stay."_

_I wanted you to stay._

Despite her efforts, her tantrums, the angry bitter words she’d screamed at him, she’d wanted him to stay by her side throughout her recovery. And he had stayed, regardless of the dog’s abuse she’d given him and the emotional strain of her being the worst patient possible. He’d stayed with her, tended to her burns and broken ribs, held her close and whispered soft comforts into her ear after each nightmare woke her from the little sleep she got, made sure she ate and cleaned her wounds...

There was only so much he could handle though, before he finally snapped and left her at her godparent’s house for them to take care of her.

That day had been the last time he’d kissed her.

It had been such a fleeting gesture, one she barely registered in her emotionally dead haze. But she’d still felt his lips on her cheek, then on her knuckles as he said his goodbye.

"I shouldn’t have left you." Mérante’s voice was low and mournful, his dark eyes glazed and distant. "I shouldn’t have let you push me away like that, I should’ve braved it out..." His once ageless face seemed older in the weak light, suddenly taking on every single one of its thirty-eight years.

_"I should have stayed."_

The hand on Odette’s cheek was removed so he could hide his eyes, a technique which she knew he used to shield himself from shame and shield the world from any tears he may shed. She reached for his hand, pulling it down from his eyes and holding it in hers, tracing the whorls and mounds of his palm, the dry skin of someone too busy to bother moisturising it.

"You spent enough time with me. I was surprised at how long you lasted."

"It wasn’t enough though, was it? I should have been there." And here he goes again. It was no secret that his absence that night bothered him. How he’d not been on stage with her, or how he hadn’t been the one to find and rescue her, or how he hadn’t been by her side as her extensive burns were cleaned, cooled and dressed.

But she’d told him too many times before that didn’t matter, that she’d been barely conscious for most of the ordeal and that waking up in a hospital cot with him fast asleep at her bedside with her hand in his was all she needed.

She brought his hand to her cheek again, turning it so he cradled her face like he’d done earlier. "It was for me."

When he ignored her, she reached up to cradle his face in her hands, tracing the ridge beneath his eye sockets. Odette found she had no words to say, nothing that hadn’t already been said, so she smiled, concerned and nervous, the smile of someone whose long-kept-secret love was finally reciprocated.

"I know. But not for me." Brown eyes blinked slowly, and he gently brought her hands down from his face with a long and terse sigh, which he finished off with a tired chuckle. "Would you... mind if I made up for it now...?"

Before she could respond, he took her hand daintily and kissed it, then again, then again a final time as he let his lips linger on her knuckles. The gesture felt strange after her years of being a downtrodden maid, and she felt her cheeks growing hot with a soft blush which only grew when she felt his other hand return to her cheek, tilting her head upwards as he used to years before.

The papers fluttered to the ground.

It started fleeting, but slow at first, never letting their lips stay together long enough to feel the other yearning for their kiss to go on just a moment more. They hadn’t kissed in so long their lips felt like strangers, and their touch felt so new and fresh yet so familiar, even after so long. Odette could feel herself stretching upwards, almost standing on full pointe to better reach his face but still finding herself too short to comfortably melt into his kiss.

No sooner had she perched precariously on the toe of her left boot (Lord knew her right leg wasn’t stable enough to support her en pointe tonight), did she feel Mérante’s hands slip from her cheeks, down to her shoulders, teasingly catching the neck of her blouse and tugging it just far enough before it stretched and fell back to its natural rest, before gliding down her waist and coming to rest on her hips. She looped her arms around his neck, toying with his cravat and shuddering when she felt his thumb caress her hip bone; tracing the displaced joint before adding pressure with his palm, as though trying to right it. He couldn’t of course, nobody could; it had been dislocated, and all attempts to reset it correctly had failed painfully, but the way he firmly supported it made her feel as though she could leap off the ground and dance once again.

With his hands poised low, he lifted her up with a deft ease so her lips matched his more evenly. Odette took the chance to hook her left leg around his back, her weaker right one settling behind his calves, and her body pressed as close against his as she dared. She’d been starved of his warmth, his taste and scent and touch for far too long now and her kiss became longing and desperate; her mouth opening up against his to take in as much of his passion as she could, her hands ruffling the hairs at the back of his neck, moving upwards as the intensity of their kiss grew.

The change in angle of her back made her waistcoat feel uncomfortably tight, and she gasped, interrupting their kiss. Mérante frowned inquisitively, setting her on his desk and cupping her flushed cheek.

"Are you alright, my love?" _My love._ Neither of them thought they’d ever hear those words again. Not in this kind of setting anyway.

Odette nodded breathlessly, motioning down at the tight lacing across her chest. Mérante glanced down too, the temptation to pull the drawstrings loose burning in his eyes before he finally gave in and pulled out the knot.

"Better?" The relief on Odette’s face and her easy breathing told him yes. He smirked; a coy, teasing, yet utterly irresistible smirk that was so delicious yet so smug that she couldn’t help but bring her hands round to his face, her palms against his cheeks and fingertips buried in his dark curls before she pulled his head down for a kiss.

"Is that a yes?" His breath was tantalisingly hot on her wettened lips, and she pulled him down farther, her cheek to his temple and her lips against his ear.

"Of course it is." Her voice was harsh and raspier than usual, a deep purr against his ear that made him shudder. And he shuddered further when her lips caress the shell of his ear, moving up to gently pull his helix in between her teeth, releasing it, then catching it again. When she got bored with his ear she moved to his jaw, tracing its chiselled lines with her mouth and placing small kisses as and where she felt.

Mérante hummed, savouring how close he was to his muse; how her now-loose breasts pressed against him, the way her deformed hip-bone leaned against his, the feeling of her rough, workers hands toying with the hairs at his nape, scrunching out the beeswax he used to style it. She felt _different_ to how she used to feel, different in so many small ways that made her so much more exciting and wonderful with every passing moment. She felt older and more mature for a start, evident in how her movements were slower and more sensual, a far cry from the giddy young girl he’d dated all those years ago. She was no longer a strange creature composed of raised bones and trained muscles, with her gaunt face and exposed ribs. Instead she was softer; still thin, but he could feel soft fat on her hips and abdomen.

He could feel scars beneath her blouse, or along her hip where his thumb sat. They felt odd, eerily smooth in all the wrong ways, yet he still found himself tracing the patterns of their raised veins in silent awe. They were a new addition to the Odette he once knew. So he wanted to familiarise himself with them.

As his hands trailed up under her shirt, curiously stroking the lines of her scars, his mouth moved to press against the crook of her neck, tempted to give into his old desire to nibble at the delicate skin. But he wouldn’t; nibbling left a mark, and a mark would prompt questions, questions he didn’t want her to have to answer. And so he kissed her, kissed her along the elegant column of her neck and down to her collar; feeling her goose-pimples against his lips as she squirmed at his touch.

"Your beard." Odette’s voice was breathy, but he could feel her cheeks smiling. "It tickles."

"Does it now?" He brushed his mouth lightly against her skin, and she giggled, first softly then loudly. Evidently, it did tickle, and it tickled a lot. He knew Odette enough to know she rarely giggled, especially to such a joyful and mirthless degree. And it made his heart ache with his own uncontained joy; hearing her laugh after her years of pained silence.  
When he could feel her happy tears against his cheeks, he stopped, holding her close as she calmed down and her laughter became breathier and faded into blissful sighs. They relaxed into the embrace; her head resting against his ear, his lips against her neck and his hands against her warm, bare skin.

 _"I’ve missed this, Louis..."_ His heart skipped a beat as she used his given name without prompting, and he eased back, brushing their cheeks together before kissing her on her lips, lingering on it and drawing it out as much as they dared.

"I’ve missed this too." He bent his head to rest his forehead on hers, relishing even the simple sensation of the others breath against their skin. Neither of them would say how much they needed this, needed to share this moment as much as they needed air, how every time they saw each other they wanted nothing more than to fall into each other’s arms again, feel their kiss against their skin and their voice whisper in their ear. But they could feel it, they’d felt it in their kiss, felt it in their embrace as they held each other in their moment of passion. "Makes me wonder why we ever stopped."

"Stopped then... or now?" Odette’s smile grew coy and mischievous, and she fired a quick kiss up at Mérante’s nose. She’d been aiming for his lips, admittedly. But his nose would do, for now at least.

He smirked, leaning down to place alternating kisses on her upper and lower lips, gently tugging on them and feeling his heart flutter as he heard each pleasured hum. Odette nudged forward, stretching up as much as she could before Mérante’s hands slipped beneath her thighs and effortlessly lifted her higher, higher, so that her head was just higher than his and she could fully lean into his kiss. Odette took advantage of her position immediately; tucking her legs up around his back, hands tangling around his neck and tugging at his cravat until it came loose and slipped off, and pressing her open mouth against his, trying to ease his lips apart. His beard felt a lot rougher on her face than it had on her neck earlier, but it didn’t bother her as she hungrily took in more of his lips, his warmth, his taste...

_"Good Heavens man, what is taking you so long...?"_

The booming voice of the opera director caught them both off guard, and Mérante almost dropped Odette in shock. And they had no time to right themselves and retie cravats and bodices when the man himself barged into the room with all the grace of a stampeding elephant, nearly whacking the door clear off his hinges.

"You’ve been in here for an eternity! Rosita said you were only gathering your-"

Normally they would have laughed at the comically long time it took for him to notice the couple canoodling in front of him. Except for the fact that they were the canoodling couple in question.

"I was, I just got-"

"Distracted?" They could feel his playful eyebrow wiggle without seeing it. The man had known them for years after all, had seen their relationship bloom from infatuation into a full-blown romance intense enough to end in happy marriage.

And had seen it snuffed out by a fire of all things. How ironic.

"Yes, distracted." Mérante noticed how he was half-shielding Odette from their visitor, even though he didn’t really need to. His arm flapped up, flickering at the door. "Tell Rosita I’ll be out soon."

"And shall I tell her...?"

"Tell her I couldn’t find my notes. Or something else like that." Even if she would understand his true reasoning, it would be a cold day in Hell before Mérante ever admitted to missing a rehearsal for something as unprofessional as making out with Odette in his office. The days where he wouldn’t have cared were far behind him, even if his love for her wasn’t.

"If you wish." Sensing that he should probably leave his colleagues, the director turned to close the door, throwing one last giddy nod and grin at the couple before closing the door less-than-quietly.

Even once the door was closed and the director’s footsteps faded into silence down the hallway, Mérante could sense that the romantic mood had been shattered. "Are you alright, my love?"

"I’m fine." Odette seemed a lot more agitated and on edge, much like how she’d been at the start of the evening, with her dark eyes darting and flitting about in their sockets and her breathing becoming more uneasy. "I should get back to work, I’ve kept you long enough."

"Of course." Mérante noticed how his hands still lingered for hers after she relinquished her grasp and moved to gather up her cane and cleaning supplies. "I’m sorry, I didn’t know he’d burst in on us."

"I didn’t either." She forced a smile and laugh, her right leg trembling as she looked around for her cane, which was fetched and graciously handed to her by Mérante. With a weak nod and a slight curtsey, she took it, and haphazardly stabilised herself. Mérante made a mental note to buy her a longer one as soon as he got the chance. After all, an ex-ballerina shouldn’t have to stoop so ungracefully to one side just to walk properly.

"Do you remember when he caught us backstage?" His comment made Odette look up at him, her mouth hanging open before she finally remembered the evening he’d mentioned. Neither of them were performing principal roles as they usually did, and instead had been taking a backseat to some other ballet prodigy the Opera wanted to showcase. So they’d had a little time before they finally went on stage.

Time they... hadn’t quite spent wisely.

Odette chuckled at the old memory, a soft colour returning to her cheeks. "How could I ever forget?"

"I feel as though we’ve forgotten a lot of things that happened back then." Either by choice or time, he thought, knowing his conscious memory had tried to delete many of the memories which pained him, be it memories of the fire or the deaths of so many friends and colleagues, to happier times before the tragedy struck. They always found a way to come back, of course.

"Glad I’m not the only one." She reached down for her basket, only again to have it passed to her by Mérante, whose smile faltered as he realised she could probably fetch them herself.

"I’m sorry, I-"

"It’s okay." She dropped her cane so she could clasp his hand, feeling herself tremble on her haunches but not uncomfortable enough to kneel, and locked eyes with him as she smiled. "Really, thank you."

He took her hand and pressed it to his lips. "It was my pleasure."

**Author's Note:**

> When is this set? I dunno lol  
> Where's Félicie? ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
> Was I horny when I wrote this? Hella


End file.
